Korriban - Chapter 93
Link to the masterpost. Chapter 92. Chapter 94.
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There are a grand total of four tombs in the Valley of the Dark Lords, two on one side and two on the other side. There are smaller Sith graves here and there but nothing too spectacular about them to my layman’s eye. One of them has to be the tomb of Naga Sadow, and I won’t be able to get in there until I pass the final test. The other three seem to be fair game. The only way to know anything is to ask one of the archaeologists myself.
A human is standing near the first tomb on the right, notating things in his datapad. Looks like some runes, but I wouldn’t know either way. Archaeology is not my field of interest. Sure, I’d hang out with anthropologists from time to time, but archaeologists would come later, if at all. My interest is in the here and now, maybe the evolution of an ecosystem. The human seems to know something, given his frantic interest. “How old are these runes?” I ask.
“Aren't these tombs fascinating?” he says, “These ruins date back to a period when the Sith were first formed, before their exile into the far reaches of space. We had no idea the Sith were here so long ago!”
“And whose tomb is this?”
“I've been working on a translation of some of the runes here. I'm quite excited - this may very well be the tomb of Ajunta Pall!”
The name itself excites him and he says it in a way that sounds like I should know who that is. But all I know is the gossip from the library. “You’ll have to forgive me, my knowledge of history isn’t what it should be - who was Ajunta Pall?”
“Ajunta Pall was one of the first of the great Sith Lords. He rebelled against his Jedi Masters and led the way for the rest of us that followed.” I’d imagine that would have been quite troubling for him. I mean, now, anyone who turns against the Jedi has the Sith to fall back on, a whole different philosophy to study and learn. But to be the first, to have nothing else but just knowing you want to try something more than just what the Jedi teach, to carve your own way. It must have been confusing. And lonely, at first. I kinda feel for the guy, even though he’s been dead for thousands of years. “These runes claim that he was interred here… and I wonder if his sword might not be here, as well.”
“I heard something about his sword,” I say, “What makes it so special? Does it have powers or something?”
He shrugs. “The legends don't say anything about it. It may have had powers for Ajunta alone.”
I take a look at the tomb. “I’m surprised no one’s gone in to get it,” I say, “Something like that would probably be prestige worthy.”
“A few of the bolder students have tried,” he says, “They did not return. As I understand it, the tombs are quite dangerous. From what I've been told, the tombs have old traps and machines that are still active.” After all this time? “They were designed to keep out intruders when they were made and still do.” He shrugs again. “I suppose if the academy wanted to make a concerted effort, the tomb would be opened, but I think Master Uthar prefers to keep it as a challenge for the students.” He shakes his head. “The sword may be tempting, but I'm not about to risk my life to find it.”
“Well,” I say, “I’m gonna go for it. If I find it, I’ll let you have a look.”
“You would forego prestige for me?” he asks, “Not very Sith-like.”
Well, if Yuthura holds up her end of the deal, I’m not worried about prestige. “Between you and me, I don’t have anything to worry about.” He still looks at me strangely and goes back to his datapad. Carth, Jolee, and I head into the tomb.
Eating seems good for the tuk’ata that are obviously here - the droppings are a good size and shape for a predator this size. I’m not studying them so I’m not about to go digger in it, but they don’t look like the droppings of a fibrous diet. More a meat-based one. I need some light. I should have grabbed my flashlight from the Hawk during lunch. I wasn’t even thinking about it, I was so focused on Carth. Out with my blue lightsaber again.
Whoops - what did I just step on? A gnawed datapad - the tuk’ata must have tried eating it before deciding it wasn’t tasty enough to be worth the effort. Looks like it still works, at least a little. It’s an archaeologist’s datapad, so it went through heavy use. A quick skim tells me that this dude was really into rocks. There aren’t a whole lot of words I recognize - rock dudes weren’t a staple to scouting teams, and while I could recognize a fair few minerals it was by no means my specialty - but there is one that stands out. Therangen. I hung out with enough anthropologists to know that one. It’s a fuel found on most planets. Cleaner burning and provides more energy than wood but way more dangerous. If there’s therangen here, then I want to avoid setting off any explosions. Blaster fire should be fine but no fire-fire.
Tuk’ata ahead. They aren’t as open as the matriarch was, I won’t be able to persuade them away. An explosion would scare them off, but since I have no idea where the therangen is localized, it could also kill us or destroy the tomb. Not something I want to do today. After all if I’m going to die there are cooler ways to do it. So I guess that means going into attack. I activate my other lightsaber and head for them. Carth is right behind me - watching me again, the flirt - but it takes Jolee a few seconds to react. I’m not usually a head first attacker but there aren’t a whole lot of ways for me to attack from another angle in a tomb. But that also means there aren’t too many places for the tuk’ata to go, so we take care of them pretty quickly.
The tomb opens up to a large chamber. Two bridges cross a large chasm, but both are blocked by obelisks. One bridge is free and clear past the obelisk. The other has four large assault droids. The droids look defunct, but I doubt they are. Say what you will about the Sith, but their droids hold up. Republic droids tend to trade longevity for versatility, while SIth droids tend to be the opposite. (And Czerka droids have neither. Aratech has both, but they’re pricier. Smaller brands, it’s anyone’s guess what you’re getting. Any droid I’ve built is certainly versatile but since I use a hodgepodge of parts, they aren’t guaranteed to last without repair. But by that same token, they’re easy to repair. For me, anyway. I’m rambling.) So if we can we’re going to want to use the other bridge, if we can figure out how to go around the obelisk. If it were just me, by myself, I could just jump across. I’ve made worse jumps with the Force. And I could probably teach Jolee how to do it, if he doesn’t know already, but that would leave Carth over here alone and I don’t want to do that. So obviously, we have to figure out how to get rid of the obelisks.
There’s a lever. It’s never going to be that easy.
“I’ve never seen a rock like this,” Carth says, looking at the obelisk.
I take a look myself. Oh, so this is where the Therangen is. “This is Therangen. Which means getting past it won’t be a problem, but it could create a few,” I say.
“How do you mean?” he asks.
“Therangen is a fuel, burning it creates a lot of energy,” I say, “Which means it’s highly explosive. We can blow it up but there’s no telling what damage that could do to the tomb. Plus there’s the other matter of those assault droids over there who will probably activate when the thing blows up. Getting over there wouldn’t exactly be easy so we’d have to rely on ranged weapons to take them out and my aim sucks.”
“Hang on,” he says, “I’ve seen you make all kinds of jumps, are you telling me you can’t make this one?”
“Not easily, I’d need a straight shot, so I’d have to be on the bridge, and in order to do that we’d have to blow the obelisk, so the droids would activate and they’d shoot at me while I was making the jump. It’s an ill-fated endeavor.”
“Maybe going that way,” Jolee says. We both look at him. “What if you went over the other obelisk?”
You know, I hadn’t thought of that. I take a better look at it. That’s a jump I could make. “Yeah, I could make that.”
“Perhaps you could deactivate the droids as well,” he says.
Four droids? It would take a hot second, but yeah, I could do that. Depending on how old the droids are, I could either use my override code or just break a few wires. “I could do that.” I position myself and jump. I almost crash into one of the droids but I miss it by, like, an inch. “Wait by the other obelisk,” I shout back to them, “I’ll give you a signal.” They both move towards the Therangen obelisk.
Wow, these droids are old. I’ve never seen an interface like this before in my life. Not that I need to be familiar with it to deactivate the droid. I don’t even need to be delicate - there are exposed wires on the back. And I don’t need my droid toolkit, either, I can just pull these out with my hands. I’m not sure what wires go to what, since I can’t read ancient Sith, but it’s not like the droid’ll blow up on me, it’s not a bomb. So I just unplug everything, just to be safe. Five wires for four droids takes a little bit but when I’m done, the easiest thing to do is just jump back to the other bridge and blow up the Theragen myself. “Stand back, guys, this should be a pretty big boom!” I get some distance myself, lob a frag grenade, cover my ears, and wait a few seconds. One… two… three… BOOM! A few rocks fall from the ceiling but other than that the tomb is no worse for wear. The droids stay deactivated. Yay. The boys cross over the bridge and we move on.
That seems to have been the only security between the tomb entrance and the crypt. Doubtless, Ajunta Pall’s sword is buried with him, in the sole sarcophagus. But as I slide the stone sarcophagus open, and see the three swords inside, the crypt door closes, locking us in here. And the crypt gets cold. Not a normal cold, either. I turn.
This is weird. Something with the shape of a person, but not exactly a person. “Too long…” it says, “… too long in the cold and the dark. I am disturbed again? A human…”
“Now this you don't see every day,” Jolee says, “This… this is an old spirit full of the Force.” Hang on, buddy, ghosts aren’t real. Well… I guess the Force is weird like that. “I sense great sadness and regret. Walk carefully.”
“A… Jedi?” the spirit says, “Here? Why have you come to this dark place, Jedi? Why… disturb my sleepless rest?”
Hold on a moment. I think… “Are you… Ajunta Pall?” Boy, would that be a trip.
“I… had a name, once,” the spirit says, “Ajunta Pall. Yes, that was my name.” This day is getting weirder and weirder. “I was one of many. We were servants of the Dark Side… Sith Lords, we called ourselves. So proud. In the end we were not so proud. We hid… hid from those we had betrayed. We fell… and I knew it would be so…”
“Those you had betrayed,” I repeat, “Your Jedi Masters.”
“Yes,” he says, “Those who had taught us to use the Force… who warned us against the Dark Side. Yet we embraced it in secret, reveled in its power. We were… discovered? Or did we act? I can no longer remember. But here is where we came… to hide, to grow. And here we fell.”
“Why here? What was so special about Korriban?”
“Our temple…” he says, “… our tomb. Built far from our enemies. We revered power and threw off the teachings of our old masters.” Not really the answer to my question. “It… we were not the first to fall to the Dark Side. But we… had more power than those before us. It… came from elsewhere…”
“Elsewhere?” What does that even mean? The Force comes from within and without - it doesn’t exactly come from anywhere, it’s everywhere. “What do you mean?”
“Our oldest secret.” Ooh, secrets! “Only… only we would know, we lords. Only we would know where our power came from…”
“Where? Tell me.” No, I’m not seeking that power. But, one, I can’t resist a secret, and two, the whole “elsewhere” thing doesn’t make any sense.
“I cannot, human,” he says, “It is a secret of so long ago… I no longer remember. You who bristle with the Force… you must find this place…” Is he talking about the Star Forge, or the map? Something about destiny, that’s for sure. But then he looks at me, like he can’t place me. “Or… have you? Or did you? Or… will you? Oh, so… many images…” I guess when you’ve been in tune with the Force so long, the past and the future start to blur together. “I… see your heart, human Jedi. I see your power, your pride.” I’m not that prideful. “You… you will find the old place, the dark place… and you will regret it.”
This is getting creepy. “Why? What’s there?”
“So much power… it is blinding. I… I remember so little…”
“This secret…” I ask slowly, “…is it the Star Map?” Well, this will go one of two ways.
“I… I do not remember.” I should have expected that. “A map? Perhaps it is a map. But it has not been buried with me. All I have now is my sword. My sword…” He gazes past us. “I filled it with my pride. And it is… buried with me, now. A corpse as I am a corpse. I am dead, as my faith… is dead. And I shall remain here… surrounded by blackness in death as in life…”
Even for a ghost, he’s depressing, geez. “I feel sorry for you,” I say.
“Most of my brethren would desire… only to take what power I have left. Even if it would destroy them.” He pauses, like he’s considering me. “I wish my sword to be… taken away from here. I do not wish it to rot away as I have. I command this of you.”
“What should I do with it?”
“If… if you are wise, you will not keep it,” he says, “In the end, it is what destroyed me…” Definitely not taking it back to the Academy, then. “There are… three blades within my sarcophagus. Only one is truly my sword, but it has been so long… I do not remember which. Find the sword that is mine and… place it on the statue.” Which he indicates. “If it is truly mine, then it is yours.”
“How do I know which one it is?”
He pauses. “I do remember one thing of my sword…” he says, “… listen to me carefully… ‘I am that which grips the heart in fright, hearkens night and silences the light.’ It was… written on my sword long… long ago. Go, then… find my sword and place it on the statue…”
His body is long gone from the sarcophagus, but the swords remain. I may be a relative newcomer to the Force, but I do know a thing or two about swords. I unbuckle my lightsaber belt and hand it to Carth, before pulling the swords one by one from the sarcophagus. The best way to get a feel for any sword is to see how it handles.
The first is a vibrosword, which hints to me very strongly that it’s not the one. There’s nothing especially “Dark Side” about a vibrosword, and they aren’t particularly powerful. Granted, any sword can be powerful depending on whose hand it’s in, but vibroswords aren’t that special. They’re not too heavy, you can equip them with bells and whistles, but they’re cheap. This is not a tool of the Dark Side.
Now this is impressive. A silver-lined sword that feels like it’s in touch with the Force. It has a warmth to it - like fire, it’s a good warmth and a bad warmth. It would keep your hand from cramping, but it could also burn unarmored flesh. This could be an impressive weapon for a Dark Jedi. But Ajunta Pall’s creepy poetry said something about “silencing the light.” I wouldn’t say a white-hot sword silences the light.
Which leaves the final notched steel sword. Even if process of elimination didn’t tell me this was the one, I don’t like this sword. The blade is black. It looks like a giant sawtooth. It has some weight to it that would cause a lot of damage but makes it hard for someone like me to handle. It’s cold. There are markings on the blade itself, but they’ve been worn away by use and time. This is the one. I can feel it. I take it to the statue and place it where it belongs.
“You…” Ajunta Pall says, breaking his silence as I put my belt back on, “… that is the one. That is the blade that destroyed me. Take it… take it and the other blades, even… take them and go. My darkness awaits me…”
“There’s no need for you to remain here,” I say, “With the blade gone, you don’t have to stay.”
“No… need?” he repeats slowly, “What choice have I?”
“You could always return to the light. End your torment. Go haunt a few younglings or something.”
“Return?” I see he’s ignoring the younglings comment. “But… I betrayed my old masters. They would never let me return to the light side. It is too late… too late…”
“It’s never too late,” I say with a shrug, “The Jedi are nothing if not forgiving. You’ve suffered long enough, and it couldn’t hurt to try.” He’s dead. The worst that could happen is he can’t go back and he suffers like he planned to.
What does hopeful even look like on a ghost? “If… if I could return. Oh, my Master…” Sounds like success to me. “… it has been… so long… and I regret so much…” His spirit fades, and the door opens.
We cross the bridge back. Something is waiting. What now?
I don’t even need light to recognize this sleaze. Shaardan.”The spineless worm actually made it through the tomb? I'm impressed.”
“Here for the ambience?” I ask sarcastically.
“I've been hoping that someone would do the dirty work in retrieving the sword of Ajunta Pall for some time.” he says, “It's been quite a wait.”
Jolee huffs. “Typical. Always ready to jump at what they perceive to be the easier path.”
“You wouldn't have considered, oh, I don't know,” Carth chimes, “… getting it yourself?”
Shaardan ignores the both of them. “Now that you have it, I just thought I'd relieve you of it,” he says, trying to flirt it out of me. No way, bud, I’m the queen of flirting persuasively. You can’t beat me at my own game. “It must be quite a burden, after all.”
“No, I think I’ll manage with it fine,” I say, “Kind of you to offer.”
“Oh, but I insist,” he says, practically dripping with snake oil, “I'm not about to let a chance to impress Master Uthar pass me by.” He scoffs. “Especially not for a pathetic excuse for a Sith like yourself.” Oh, we’re not flirting anymore? “Hand over the sword, worm. You know I'm the superior, here.” Even if he is the better fighter, which, he’s not, can he not see Carth and Jolee? I’ve got numbers on my side. I glance back at Carth, who has clearly been waiting for the chance to smack Shaardan upside the head.
But come on. There’s an easier way to do this. “Just let me get it out,” I say, and I set my pack down.
“Fine,” Shaardan says, “No tricks, though… I’m watching you.”
Idiot. I give him the silver sword. “Smart move” he says, “You're obviously more pathetic than I could have even imagined. Thanks for the sword… worm.”
“It’s always a dream, Shaardan,” I say sarcastically.
He’s gone by the time we exit the tomb. The archaeologist is still outside working on his datapad, but he does a double take when he sees the sword. “I don’t believe it - you actually did it!” he says excitedly, frantically moving like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. “That's it, isn't it?! How did you ever acquire it?!”
“Ajunta Pall himself told me to take it from the tomb.”
He looks a tad annoyed. “You’re joking with me, aren’t you? The Sith Lord can’t still live.”
“Well, no, it’s not a tomb without a dead guy in there,” I say, “He’s definitely dead but he still told me to take the sword.”
He thinks about this, I can see the gears in his head turning. Then, “Oh, this is quite interesting! My mentor told me that Sith apparitions might be possible, but I never truly believed it!” Believe it, baby, they talk. “Thank you for the information! I must go and inform my mentor at once of this strange news!” He starts to leave.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I say, and he turns back. I hold out the sword to him.
“You’re giving him the sword?” Carth says, “We could have used that!”
“Ajunta Pall said he didn’t want it rotting away,” I say, “Who better to care for it than an archaeologist?”
“I still can’t believe you would just give me the sword and pass up the prestige for yourself,” the archaeologist says.
“My competition is drying up pretty quick, don’t you worry about me. You just made the find of a lifetime, after all.”
He’s too excited to think anymore about it. He pulls off his outer tunic and wraps the sword in it, before rushing back to the Academy.
I look back at Carth. “Ajunta said the sword basically doomed him. The power of the sword could easily corrupt me, or anyone who uses it. Giving it to an archaeologist, even a Sith one, pretty much guarantees it’ll never be used again.”
“I think it was a wise decision, lass,” Jolee says, “Probably the best in line with Ajunta’s wishes.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Carth says reluctantly, “I guess I just never saw the point in preserving weapons like that. But if it’s that powerful, maybe it’s for the best that nobody uses it.”
I take a deep breath. “Well,” I say, “I’ve still got another tomb in me - you guys?”
“I’ll follow you anywhere,” Carth says. God, the romance in a statement like that - you’re killing me, Bunny Man.
“You’re just going to drag me along anyway,” Jolee says, “Might as well go willingly.”
One more tomb on this side of the Valley. Let’s go.